Meet the Artist // Zoe Ilić

Zoe Ilić’s practice explores materiality and mark-making as reflections of human connection and desire. the artist examines how images are constructed through the interaction of material and form, creating moments of tension, ambiguity, and stillness. The work captures a sense of distance between forms that appear to reach toward one another without ever fully connecting.

Zoe Ilić

Do you want to start by telling me a little bit about yourself and what you’re working on while you’re here at GlogauAIR?

My practice usually starts with a material I’m interested in or excited about. It comes from the type of making that I want to be doing. While I’ve been here, I’ve been focusing on watercolor and gouache painting. I don’t want to draft imagery here. I want to see what happens when I’m forced to face the blank page over and over.
My work is mostly abstract. Certain forms come up in my work a lot, certain patterns, like matrices and netting. I think a lot about different Earth processes, like tectonic plate movement. Or recently, I was in Nebraska at a different residency, and I saw a shooting star for the first time, and it kind of broke my mind a bit. It’s become a catalyst for my work, the idea of deep time at a celestial level.
Since I’ve come here, my works are taking the form of a landscape or landscape-esque thing, which has been interesting. I’ve been thinking about the concept of landscape, how it’s a jumping-off point. A vanishing point or horizontal line can ground you and then allow you to contextualize the rest of the work. It’s been interesting, especially because I’ve been thinking about how everything in art has already been done. So what does it mean to make a landscape in 2026? It’s just owning that using this recognizable motif gives you the freedom to play.

How do you feel like your work is evolving through play?

I feel like my work has been really uncomfortable and vulnerable while I’ve been here. In a lot of residencies, you’re asked to have a project in mind and then to execute and show that project. But right now, I’m in this cool new place where I’m just making.
I’m trying to reject the scarcity mindset. There’s more paper. I can make new things. I just want to see what happens when I try.
I started with a printmaking background, mostly working with paper, and then I started wood burning. Now I’m working with watercolor, which is fairly new to me. I’m noticing certain strategies develop over time. And I’m wondering about my own process, like why do I always make certain shapes or movements in my work?
I think when working abstractly there’s often a pressure to define or explain what you’re making, because people are rightfully curious. But there’s part of art that comes from a raw emotional state. It’s just making, and happening. It’s intuitive.

What do you want people to take away from your work?

I’d like to think that energy transfers through work. There’s a lot of vulnerability, a lot of things that feel unfinished for me right now. In the art world, there’s always a lot of
synthesizing happening, like putting bows on things and defining them. But right now, I’m excited by ambiguity.